Printing businesses across the UK are working hard to keep up with production demands after the prime minister advised the public to avoid all unnecessary contact.
Unlike office-based workers, those employed in the flexo production process cannot work from home, requiring their employers to take extra safety precautions.
Colin Le Gresley, managing director of Aztec Label, explained, ‘As with all businesses, we are doing everything we can to ensure we meet the demands of our customers while ensuring the safety and well being of our workforce.
‘We have a significant number of customers from across the pharmaceutical industry and therefore we feel it is particularly important for us to continue operations as long as practicable to ensure the availability of safely labelled medicines to those affected across the country.
‘We have excellent supplies and stock management systems, and our operation is set up to run as long as we can operate safely.
We believe that productivity should never come at the expense of safety. Hygiene is of the utmost importance to us and it is already routine that our facilities are kept immaculately clean at all times, which means we are facing minimal disruption during production.
‘All colleagues are aware of the government guidelines and we have facilities to enable regular handwashing. We are addressing any individual staff issues on a one-to-one basis with their well being front of mind.
‘We will undoubtedly be affected by the same issues as other businesses in the sector, such as logistics and support suppliers, but it is our intention to continue operations and overcome each obstacle as they develop throughout what is a challenging time for the whole country.’
Paula Birch, Parkside’s global sales director, said ‘Clearly these are unprecedented times challenging any business supplying the food industry. At Parkside, our primary focus must be on the health, safety and well-being of our employees, their families, as well as our customers, suppliers and communities we operate in. We have therefore implemented a range of measures in line with current UK Government and NHS guidelines to minimise the spread of the virus including the restriction of employee movement, staff monitoring, sanitising equipment being made available, homeworking, and much more, in order to ensure that productivity doesn’t come at the expense of staff safety.
‘We work with clients from across the globe and have implemented a range of supply chain protocols to manage what is now a volatile demand situation, as a result of the unfortunate panic buying that has occurred in many countries in recent days. Fortunately, we have excellent supply and stock management systems in place and are extremely confident that we have appropriate practices, procedures and focus already to enable us to safely continue meeting this increased demand from our customers. We are however, closely monitoring the situation and working in partnership with our customers and suppliers to forecast any issues and stay ahead in our business continuity planning.’
Edale’s managing director, James Boughton, released a statement which said, ‘We have taken the following steps to ensure that we continue to work closely with you:
- Rather than face to face meetings, we are using online conferencing services.
- Visitors to our UK Head Quarters will be restricted at this time; however, we have online solutions in place.
- Our customer support teams remain operational and whilst site visits will be constrained, we continue to supply parts and remote service.
- To ensure continued service, we have implemented where practical the facility for employees to work from home, and for those in the factory, we have split all core teams in two, and they now operate from two separate and segregated locations.
- We have increased social distancing and have implemented significant measures to increase hygiene and cleanliness.
‘I do not shy away from saying that this is going to be a challenging time, but I believe we are taking all necessary and responsible steps to ensure business continuity for the benefit of our employees and customers.’
